A one year project to become a better man in America's south
Day 164 – Have ever surfed the web, come across something badass that you want to remember, but had nowhere to store it? The solution used to be bookmarks, but no one ever goes back to those things. Pinterest is the solution.
Pinterest is a new website and app that I’ve been enjoying lately. And by “lately,” I mean every single day. In fact, its one of the first websites/apps I use every day because it helps me get dressed in the morning.
Day 163- I’m sitting in a hotel bar, watching important people walk by and waiting for the Myrtle Beach presidential debate to begin. My homies and I are sitting here drinking various alcoholic beverages. Michael Rentiers and I are enjoying a nice Guinness.
Unfortunately, they are from a bottle. They are good, but let’s all be real for a minute. There is nothing better than a properly poured draught Guinness. NOTHING!
Day 157 – I always like trying out new joints when on the road. The more obscure, the better. After a long day of work, there’s really nothing better than exploring new spots, rockin’ out, and sharing a few laughs with friends.
Except if untrained staff ruins your jacket, and then poor management ignores your humble requests for compensation.
Day 155 – That’s it. I’m going to start killing animals.
Today all my boys are out in the woods. I balked at the idea earlier this week with my normal excuse “I’m not standing out in the cold.” Today its 70 degrees and I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be than in the woods and shooting stuff with my boys. The next obvious step in my Man Project is to get a hunting license. It’s time. I’m doing it. No excuses.
[Read more...]
Day 150 – 150 days of blogging. BOO YAH!!
What a day. It’s like the holidays won’t end. The entire Donehue Direct team was finally back in the office for the first time in nearly 3 weeks and we were forced to take another half-day off. And by forced, I mean the University of South Carolina Gamecocks played in their biggest bowl game ever.
Day 149 – I hate money. I really really hate it. A lot of people are driven by money, especially entrepreneurs. Perhaps I shouldn’t make this confession as I’m currently seeking investors in different web ventures. But it’s the truth. Money just doesn’t motivate me. Now building something cool like a winning campaign or a big business, that motivates me, but having a lot of green stored away just doesn’t float my boat.
Today is the first day of 2012. I’m pumped to see what this year can bring. The truth is that last year was the best year of my life. Sure, it had a good many downs, but I lived life to its fullest with my soulmate. **Is it just me or has Mark Sanford completely ruined that word?**
Day 148 – It’s the last day of 2011. You don’t have time to read blog posts and I don’t have time to write, so I’m going to leave you with an end of the year gift, my favorite Avett Brothers tunes.
We had so much fun yesterday touring microbreweries in Asheville, NC. This morning we ate an amazing breakfast, toured a little more and then hit the road for Greenville. I just woke up from a quick nap and in one hour we leave for a big Avett Brothers concert to ring in 2012.
Day 147 – I love Asheville. I’m a conservative who loves Austin, Key West and San Francisco too. Asheville is a southern mountain version of those liberal bastions.
I just stumbled across an amazing fact that has me pumped. Asheville, NC has been rated “Beer City, USA” the last two years because of the large number of microbreweries within the city. From what I hear, those microbreweries are cranking out some seriously amazing beer.
Day 140 – Everything changed when I turned 30. I realized that my life could be half over and that it was time to pick up the pace.
I traveled a little bit, but I had not seen so many parts of the world.
I was working hard, but building someone else’s company. They traveled the country and made a name for themselves while I stayed locked up as the workhorse.
I sacked away half my paycheck for a retirement I may never see.
Why all the doom and gloom and talk of an early death?
Day 139 – Any day in Charleston, South Carolina is going to be a good day, even if its just for a few hours.
After spending some time in the office, recording Congressman Wilson, getting taped by Nancy Mace (more on that sometime later) and meeting with David Asiamah about his Columbia Blogger Series, I hit the road with Elizabeth for our Christmas break in Charleston. Tonight we spent time with some of our best friends, Kristin and Jason Fry, to exchange gifts.
Day 138 – I’m a firm believer that the best Christmas presents are drank or eaten. The memory of enjoying an Omaha Steak and a good glass of wine is far better than the new Dust Devil sitting under the Christmas tree. When I can shake a wrapped gift and clearly hear liquid sloshing around, I get pretty excited. Unless of course I open it up and it’s a bottle of pine-sol to complement the new Dust Devil. Fun Christmas.
As I get older, the gifts I need start to get more mundane and less exciting, so eating and drinking the holidays away is always a perfect time to experiment with new culinary fascinations.
Day 134 – One thing I left out yesterday about the value of an oyster roast is the perfection known as the oyster shooter. It’s as American as apple pie. Or maybe more Charlestonian perhaps. I don’t really know either way.
Day 133 – We’re having an exciting year over here at Donehue Direct. As we grow, it seems that sometimes I have to take a step back and realize why I got into the consulting and politics business in the first place. Work is work, but there’s also the human need to unwind- as the workload increases and campaign season starts, I know I definitely have to cool off and have a few laughs or else we’re going to go crazy with polls and twitter updates.
Day 121 – Whew…I’m beat.
I woke up at 4:00 AM to hop a flight back from DC to Columbia. I was in town less than twenty-four hours for a quick meeting. Now I’m heading back to Columbia where I will immediately hook up with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann for a book tour stop.
Day 118 – WOOT! WOOT! I’m 32. And I feel it.
The day didn’t start out great. I’m definitely feeling my age now. I hit the gym first thing this morning, and while pushing a giant tractor trailer tire across the gym, I felt an urgent need to puke. So I ran to the restroom, puked my guts out and headed home. I got home, opened the door, fell to the floor in the foyer and slept for a little over an hour. Yep, I literally passed out in the foyer of my home.
Day 116 – Today I learned that I’m supposed to only wash my hair twice a week. Ok, this one is new to me and I just don’t know how I feel about it.
As a man, I should be going to a barber shop and not a stylist, but today I had to make an exception. Before I get into this, you should know that my father was a barber and my mother was a cosmetologist. That means I got my hair cut all the time.
Day 113 – Elizabeth blogs occasionally about things that “made me smile.” Today I want to tell you about something that made me scream.
I absolutely hate AT&T’s 3G MicroCell. Don’t buy it.
This device plugs into your Internet service to extend 3G into a building with poor AT&T service. It’s
Day 112 – Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
It was a very special day for us. We hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner at our home. We picked up my grandmother and Elizabeth’s grandmother from their respective homes. Elizabeth’s brother and my sister, brother-in-law and niece drove up from Charleston.
Day 88 – We were being hammered for weeks. Support for the national Fair Tax was starting to catch up with Congressman Jim DeMint during the final weeks of his campaign for the United States Senate.
The Fair Tax is a pretty good idea. Eliminate all taxes, get ride of the IRS and just stick a 23% sales tax on everything. The problem is that its hard to argue that in a 30 second ad, but it’s real easy for your opponent to argue that you want to raise taxes by 23% on EVERYTHING. Groceries, gas, clothes, you name it, Inez Tenenbaum said that Jim DeMint wanted to raise taxes on it.
By now you know that I’m teaching a Sunday School class on Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. Today we got into Book 3 – Christian Behavior. It’s always fun when you get to talk about sex and alcohol in Sunday School.
And by “fun,” I mean totally awkward.
As I was leaving church today, I thought more about this issue of temperance. I talked about it before in my post Christianity and My Vodka Tonic and today I started thinking about how screwed up our society has become.
Our world today is full of people who do things to the extreme or don’t do them at all. Just look at the college kids right here at the University of South Carolina. They have do-gooders telling them not to drink at all. And they have frat brothers forcing liquor down their throats through funnels.
What they don’t have is someone saying “dude, drink three or four beers, chill and have some good conversation.”
People just expect you to fall in one of the two extremes. No one expects you to be in the middle.
The sad thing is that there are people out there that do live a temperate life style with regards to alcohol. You may even be one of them.
However, they typically are the ones that aren’t vocal about it. Alcohol to them isn’t something to be feared or worshipped. They just enjoy it with their friends, enjoying its properties while holding it with a healthy respect.
Drinking less than I do or drinking more than I would be able to handle could also be forms of temperance. This really is a personal issue and deciding for yourself what would be best.
Even not drinking at all can be a form of temperance if you are someone who knows that they cannot handle even the smallest bit of alcohol.
The problem comes when people start judging others for not doing exactly as they are doing. Therefore the teetotalers as well as the binge drinkers who look down on you are both in the wrong.
Be honest with yourself. You know what you can and cannot handle. Don’t let anyone else force you to either extreme.
